'Sherlock' fans hope film stays true to original stories

Local Sherlock Holmes fans are curious how their hero will be portrayed in a new film - but some aren't necessarily looking forward to seeing it.

With the new “Sherlock Holmes” movie starring Robert Downey Jr. that opened this weekend, Holmes fans are anxiously waiting to see if they will praise or pan it.

Will it be true to author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character and stories, or will it be a flagrant misrepresentation for profit’s sake?

Given Hollywood’s history on Holmes depictions and its more recent literary representations such as “The Lord of the Rings,” it’s hard to predict.

This movie has been billed as a “reinvention” of Holmes. In interviews, Downey characterized it as an “action adventure” and said it’s “a return to (Holmes’) idiosyncrasies that Conan Doyle had in his books that people haven’t really paid much attention to.” Of course Downey also said he’d read only two of those four novels and 56 short stories.

“Action hero” and Sherlock Holmes aren’t typically uttered in the same sentence. But a preview showed a ripped, shirtless Downey (as Holmes) in more than one fight scene. Will this be one of many misrepresentations?

“There are some aspects within the (Conan Doyle) literature that they’re cuing off of, like we know that Holmes had the reputation of being a boxer and being familiar with professional boxers of that time,” says Bill Denham, a Springfield member of the local Sherlock Holmes interest group Pondicherry Lodge.

Denham realizes that the movie’s creators, like many others before them, will take liberties with Conan Doyle’s character and stories. But as long as they keep certain elements intact, Denham thinks he can live with it.

For him, one of those sacred elements is the strong bond between Holmes and his sidekick, Dr. Watson.

“These two guys sort of bounce off each other,” Denham says.

Some movies have inaccurately portrayed Watson as a bumbling idiot.

“In the (original) stories, that’s not the case at all,” Denham says. “Watson doesn’t necessarily get things and he tries to apply Holmes’ method (of deduction), but he’s a foil for Holmes. It’s hard to imagine what Holmes would have been like without his Watson.”

Maybe, maybe not

Like Denham, Pondicherry Lodge member Robert Seufert of Winchester has mixed feelings about seeing the Robert Downey movie.

He’s been a fan of the Holmes stories since his teen years and has taught a class on Holmes at MacMurray College. Seufert knows upfront that the Downey movie won’t “be Sherlock Holmes in any way as Conan Doyle intended it.”

He believes the movie stemmed from Downey’s desire to spin off the success of his last movie, “Iron Man,” in which he portrayed an action hero.

“Downey wanted to do another action movie based on an intelligent hero,” Seufert says. “Instead of living up to the original character or trying to recreate the original character, I think Downey seems to have used it as a starting point for his own star vehicle, so he could basically be
Robert Downey Jr., but under the mantel of Sherlock Holmes, so it would draw a larger audience because of the allure of that icon.

“I’m kind of negative on it because I know it’s going to be a lot of stuff that is noncanonical like a sexual relationship with Irena Adler (a woman Holmes admired from afar in the original books), which is really inconceivable, and all kinds of stuff about the extent of his depravity,” Seufert adds. “(Holmes) is depraved enough on his own, without having to add depravities. I mean, he is somewhat addicted to cocaine and opium.”

Like others, Seufert hopes the new Sherlock Holmes movie will have the positive effect of introducing a younger generation to the enduring character.

“Maybe Downey Jr. will nudge some of them to go back to the original stories,” he said.

Interest in the author

On the other hand, Pondicherry Lodge member Mary Denham of Springfield is excited about the movie.

“This is going to be so much fun,” she says. She realizes the creators will “tweak and twist and have fun” with the characters, but is ready to “suspend disbelief” and “enjoy it for what it is” — another take on the brilliant Victorian era British detective.

“This movie is going to make Holmes accessible to everybody, and those who do know Holmes will pick up on the inside jokes,” Mary says. “It’s kind of like the movie ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ (a 1998 fictionalized tale about Shakespeare); the movie was for everybody. If you did know Shakespeare, you picked up on the lines that referred to Shakespeare plays.”

Springfield Pondicherry Lodge member Betty Washko agrees.

“I’m really not concerned. I’m sure it’s going to be a big blockbuster, and I’m looking forward to seeing it,” she said.

If the movie increases interest in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original books, she hopes new fans won’t confine themselves to his Holmes works.

“The other books that he wrote are even better,” says Washko, who recommends his historical novels “Sir Nigel” and “The White Company” in particular.

Finding fans of Sherlock Holmes

Pondicherry Lodge, the local Sherlock Holmes reading group, has its next meeting at 9 a.m. Jan. 9 at the cafe at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 3111 S. Veterans Parkway.

Read for free

You can download “Sherlock Holmes” author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works for free online at www.gutenberg.org. Or, the Lincoln Library in Springfield has Holmes stories at each of its three branches.

Did you know?

Aside from the obvious (Great Britain and the United States), Sherlock Holmes movie or television productions have been made in Italy, Germany, Japan, the former Soviet Union, France and the Czech Republic, among other places.
Actor Eille Norwood played Holmes more than 40 times on screen, mostly in silent films in the early 1920s.
Scotsman Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and later became a doctor. He was at the university at the same time as J.M. Barrie (“Peter Pan”) and Robert Louis Stevenson (“Treasure Island”). Doyle gave up his moderately successful medical career in the early 1890s to concentrate on writing.
The first Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet,” was published in 1887. The character ended up in four novels, six short story collections, and several plays.
Doyle earned financial and popular success with his Holmes stories, but preferred his other novels and stories. When he killed of Holmes a story published in December 1893, 20,000 readers canceled their subscriptions to The Strand magazine, which had been publishing the stories. However, one of the most popular Holmes stories, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” was published in 1901, and other Holmes stories periodically followed.
Doyle’s “The Lost World” is about Professor Challenger and others stranded in a mysterious region of South America, discovering prehistoric animals and plants. Sounds a little like “Jurassic Park.” The professor, like Holmes, appeared in a number of other subsequent stories.
Sherlock Holmes has been parodied many times. Sherlock Hemlock, an early “Sesame Street” Muppet, frequently overlooked the obvious while trying to solve mysteries. Gene Wilder starred in “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother” (1978). And Daffy Duck portrayed Dorlock Holmes in the cartoon short “Deduce, You Say” (1956).
— Sources: www.sherlockholmesonline.org, Internet Movie Database

Who else has played Sherlock Holmes?

Robert Downey Jr. is just the latest actor to play the detective. Among the more famous actors who have played the role on TV or the movies (and other notable work they did) are: